topiary

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on February 28, 2012 at 6:16pm

Curator’s Comment:  

 

Topiary seems to me to have a decidedly Art Nouveau style by design, but the medium calls to mind more contemporary ideas about graphics, symmetry and perfection in nature.  More subdued in color than most of your other works, the intricacy of the lacy floral pattern on top and elongated vessel shape (trunk?) hold my visual interest.   The slight modulations in brown and intense green within the shapes provides some illusion of space, but the strength in this piece for me is in its bold flat design with repeating scalloped arc shapes suggesting branches or petals.  I also like the openness of the sides created by the faded out pink and pale green tints on the overhanging top and bottom.  The weightier top section also suspends the overall visual weight in the composition, creating an uplifting, airy feeling of vertical reach. Many of your other pieces offer sensual color with tactile organic forms.  But more often they employ an almost random movement, as if trailing a living energy or organism.  Topiary, as the title suggests, alternatively evidences our need to control natural forces and bend them to our desires.